CHAPTER VI
The burden of the locusts—Classical nonsense—Address to Mahomet—Locusts in Europe—Succumb to the English climate—Described by Darwin—Locusts in Africa—The wingless host do greatest damage—Hoppers and jumpers—“An army on the march.”
LOCUSTS are insects famous in story, and when one reads about them in various entomological or other writings, one might imagine that the whole world had been doing little else, ever since it began, than play a losing match with these creatures. It is only after one has gone a little about the world, and lived for some time in regions noted as their head-quarters without seeing anything whatever of them, that one begins to doubt this view, and lean towards another one, viz. that they are fabulous animals; but truth, as in other cases where two extreme views are held, lies somewhere betwixt and between. The whole matter is this, that when one reads one narrative after another, with its burden of a darkened sun, devastated territories, strong winds, drownings in the sea, and pestilences engendered by innumerable carcases cast up along hundreds of miles of beach, the intervals, as well as the countries, between each one of these occurrences, are annihilated in the imagination, and the dates, if seen, are forgotten. Thus, to use the Kaffir expression—which has not yet lost its meaning for a civilised European—one sees everything red; locusts are very convincing—“you may almost hear the beating of their wings.”
However, there is no doubt that these insects, in relation to man, have played what the Germans call “eine bedeutende Rolle” in the world, and are worth saying something about, if only one has something not too desperately antique to say, and this, by virtue of a work which I, at any rate, have never seen quoted, and a paper in a certain Antipodean organ, which for the majority of people here might as well be in theFaerie QueeneorParadise Lost, I think I may have. But first let us turn to what, though it be antique, is also classical, and—though this would not be a corollary for everyone—very delightful: “To look,” say the authors of the famousIntroduction, “at a locust in a cabinet of insects, you would not, at first sight, deem it capable of being the source of so much evil to mankind as stands on record against it. ‘This is but a small creature,’ you would say, ‘and the mischief which it causes cannot be far beyond the proportion of its bulk. The locusts so celebrated in history must surely be of the Indian kind mentioned by Pliny, which were three feet in length, with legs so strong that the women used them as saws. I see, indeed, some resemblance to the horse’s head, but where are the eyes of the elephant, the neck of the bull, the horns of the stag, the chest of the lion, the belly of the scorpion, the wings of the eagle, the thighs of the camel, the legs of the ostrich, and the tail of the serpent, all of which the Arabians mention as attributes of this widely dreaded insect destroyer, but of which, in the insect before me, I discern little or no likeness?’” Personally, I do not for a moment imagine that even in 1815, the date of the first edition of thework in question, any reasonably educated person would have spoken or thought in this way, without any conception, apparently, of what numbers can effect, but it is interesting to know what the Arabs think, or say, about the locust, and especially that they represent it—as we are told a few lines on—as thus addressing Mahomet: “We are the army of the Great God; we produce ninety-nine eggs; if the hundred were completed, we should consume the whole earth and all that is in it.”
The authors then proceed to give a short résumé of the various locust plagues under which the earth, over a large part of its surface, has at different times groaned. The first and best authenticated goes back to a very early period—about 4000B.C.—after which the evidence does not conform quite so strictly to the test demanded of it by the modern scientific spirit. Pliny, however, we are told, “mentions a law in Cyrenaica by which the inhabitants were enjoined to destroy the locusts in three different states, three times in the year—first their eggs, then their young, and lastly the perfect insect. And not without reason was such a law enacted; for Orosius tells us that in the year of the world 3800 Africa was infested by such infinite myriads of these animals that having devoured every green thing, after flying off to sea they were drowned, and being cast upon the shore, they emitted a stench greater than could have been produced by the carcases of 100,000 men (a very confident statement, surely). St. Augustine also mentions a plague as having arisen in that country from the same cause, which destroyed no less than 800,000 persons (octingentahominum millia) in the kingdom of Masanissa alone, and many more in the territories bordering upon the sea.” After this we make a jump toA.D.591, and find the locusts in Europe. In that year “an infinite army of them, of a size unusually large, grievously ravaged part of Italy; and, being at last cast into the sea, from their stench arose a pestilence which carried off near a million of men and beasts. In the Venetian territory also, in 1478, more than 30,000 persons” (but this seems pitiful) “are said to have perished in a famine occasioned by these terrific scourges.”
Many other instances of their devastations in Europe, in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, etc., are recorded by the same authors. “In 1650 a cloud of them was seen to enter Russia in three different places, which from thence passed over into Poland and Lithuania, where the air was darkened by their numbers. In some places they were seen lying dead, heaped one upon another to the depth of four feet; in others they covered the surface, like a black cloth, the trees bent with their weight, and the damage they did exceeded all computation.” Nay, “even this happy island (lucus a non lucendo), so remarkably distinguished by its exemption from most of those scourges to which other nations are exposed (as fog, sunshine, etc.), was once alarmed by the appearance of locusts. In 1748 they were observed here in considerable numbers, but providentially they soon perished without propagating”—the “happy island” apparently having been too much for them. These unfortunates would appear to have been stragglers from far vaster numbers which a year before haddevastated Eastern Europe, one swarm of which, “entering Transylvania in August, was several hundred fathoms in width. At Vienna the breadth of one of them was three miles, and extended to so great a length as to be four hours in passing over the Red Tower: and such was its density that it totally intercepted the solar light, so that when they flew low one person could not see another at the distance of twenty paces.” Another host that appeared in India is said to have formed a column five hundred miles long, and “so compact was it when on the wing that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the sun, so that no shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty tombs not more than 200 yards off were rendered quite invisible.”
Dr. Clarke in hisTravelsspeaks of locusts covering “his carriage and horses, and says the Tartars assert that people are sometimes suffocated by them.” He mentions two species, “the first of which is almost twice the size of the second, and, because it precedes it, is called by the Tartars the herald or messenger.” From 1778 to 1780 a dreadful curse of locusts, alluded to by Southey in his “Thalaba”—or, perhaps, forming the subject of that poem—I really don’t know—fell upon the Empire of Morocco. “Everything green was eaten up, not even the bitter bark of the orange and pomegranate escaping. A most dreadful famine ensued. The poor were seen to wander over the country deriving a miserable subsistence from the roots of plants; and women and children followed the camels, from whose dung they picked the undigested grains of barley, which they devoured with avidity; in consequence of which numbers perished, andthe roads and streets exhibited the unburied carcases of the dead.” Again, “From Mogador to Tangier, before the plague of 1799, the face of the earth was covered by them. At that time a singular incident occurred at El Araiche. The whole region from the confines of the Sahara was ravaged by them; but on the other side of the river, El Kos, not one was to be seen, though there was nothing to prevent their flying over it. Till then they had proceeded northwards; but upon arriving at its banks they turned to the east, so that all the country north of El Araiche was full of pulse, fruits, and grain—exhibiting a most striking contrast to the desolation of the adjoining district.” Lastly—that is to say, to make a last quotation from the classics—“The Arabs of the Desert, whose hands are against every man, and who rejoice in the evil that befalls other nations, when they behold the clouds of locusts proceeding from the north, are filled with gladness, anticipating a general mortality, which they callEl Khere(the benediction), for when a country is thus laid waste they emerge from their arid deserts and pitch their tents in the desolated plains.”
Darwin, in hisJournal of Researches, gives the following account of a flight of locusts: “Shortly before we arrived at the village of Luxan we observed to the south a ragged cloud of a dark reddish-brown colour. At first we thought that it was smoke from some great fire on the plains; but we soon found that it was a swarm of locusts. They were flying northward, and with the aid of a slight breeze they overtook us at a rate of ten or fifteen miles an hour. The main body filled the air from a height oftwenty feet to that, as it appeared, of two or three thousand above the ground; ‘and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle,’ or rather, I should say, like a strong breeze passing through the rigging of a ship. The sky, seen through the advanced guard, appeared like a mezzotinto engraving, but the main body was impervious to sight; they were not, however, so thick together but that they could escape a stick waved backwards and forwards. When they alighted, they were more numerous than the leaves in the field, and the surface became reddish instead of being green: the swarm having once alighted, the individuals flew from side to side in all directions.” At that time—the year was 1835—locusts were “not an uncommon pest in this country: already during this season several smaller swarms had come up from the south, where, as, apparently, in all other parts of the world, they are bred in the deserts. The poor cottagers in vain attempted by lighting fires, by shouts, and by waving branches to avert the attack.” This locust, Darwin tells us, closely resembled the famousGryllus migratoriusof the East—the one that spoke to the Prophet—if, indeed, it was not identical with it.
Though these accounts are all interesting in their way, they none of them tell us much—or, indeed, anything—about the locusts themselves, for which reason I will supplement them with some which have that advantage, and are also, in some sort, a check or commentary upon the others. It is to be noted that, in all these, we hear only of flying locusts, and anyone would imagine by readingof them that it was by such, and no others, that all the damage was done. In Africa, however, and also in Cyprus—from which we may assume that it is the same elsewhere—the case is widely different. Writing evidently as a locust expert of the former country, Dr. Æneas Munro tells us that it is in their early wingless state—answering to the caterpillar one, though far less differentiated from the perfect form—that the most terrible, the overwhelming, injury is inflicted by these insects. Of the full-grown flying locusts he says, “To a certain extent, they do injure here and there, where they select to settle and feed; but they do not devour everything clean before them, like the army of the larval stage or jumpers.”[18]Of the latter and its doingsab ovowe have the following interesting account: “When the tiny creatures issue from their nest they are of a greenish white or creamy colour, about an eighth of an inch in length,” and on the day that they do so “the very dust of the ground, which was so still before, now seems to waken into life. They begin to move by a process of twisting or rolling over one another, so that, for the first few days, they receive the name of twisters. Within eight or ten days, however, they can jump four or six inches, and at the age of three or four weeks a new characteristic makes its appearance. A desire to explore manifests itself, and in a surprising manner. The whole company moves in a body in one general direction, and more or less in a straight line, as if by one common instinct, without apparently having any recognised leader or commander,”[18]which is just the way, in my opinion, that rooks and starlings move.[19]
Marching in this way they spread themselves out over the country, “eating everything that comes in their way—wheat (if sufficiently young and tender), maize (even if strong and old), corn, sugar-cane, linseed, alfalfa (lucerne), pasture of all kinds, vegetables of all kinds (tomatoes and celery), and all garden produce, potatoes (ordinary and sweet), the leaves and sometimes even the bark of the trees, causing their ruin. The fruit, of course, is lost for the season. Orange, willow, poplar, palm, banana, peach, pear, plum, vine, acacia, roses, etc., are stripped,” but not “the gum and paradise trees, which seem to be poisonous to them. They make everything ‘clean bare’; sometimes they will enter houses, and eat the very clothes and curtains at the windows.”[20]They will even eat the wool off the backs of the sheep, and “last stage of all that ends this strange, eventful history,” on a pressing occasion they will eat one another. Continuing his interesting account—the graphic and convincing one of an eye-witness— Dr. Munro tells us that “when these hoppers and jumpers (voetgangers, as the Boers call them) are on the march, they sometimes appear so determined and bent on the fearful execution of their work, that they resemble and have got the name of ‘an army on the march.’ They move in open file, and carry themselves in a proud, haughty way, with heads high up and fixed. It is beautiful and interesting to see them on the march, if we only divest ourselves for the moment of the idea of their devastating object.”[20]And again, “The whole of the company begin to walk at the same time, as if by order; the head is kept erect, and the neck is as if stiffened. They gostraight on, irrespective of danger,”[20]and are deterred, as is well known, by hardly any obstacle. “The sight of this army is a very impressive one, and once seen will never be forgotten. In some respects it is an awful sight; the spectacle strikes you with pity and sorrow to see at once before you that the toil and the labour for the season, or, indeed, the year, is lost.”[20]
“It is in this marching stage,” continues Dr. Munro, “that thevoetgangersdo enormous damage and eat every edible thing in their path, and completely destroy the work of the husbandman. They are not content with levying toll merely, but they will have all, and will leave nothing behind but desolation. They are therefore unlike the flying company of locusts, which only levy toll here and there, but these, when they pass, leave nothing.”
Some curious facts are then given in regard to the uniform direction—varying according to the country—in which these wingless locusts march. The account will be remembered of how a flying host came to the banks of a river which they refrained from crossing. One might almost think that a mistake had here been made, and that the locusts were reallyvoetgangers, but had they been so, the river, unless a large one, need not have deterred them—at least, they will pass streams, though doubtless great numbers are sacrificed in doing so. If, however, the stream had run parallel to the direction in which the swarm was advancing, we can understand, in the light of what seems to be now established, their not crossing it.